DLA is changing.

From this Monday, June 20, Disability Living Allowance (DLA) will be abolished for new claims and replaced by Personal Independence Payment (PIP).

Almost 9,000 people in the Fermanagh and Omagh District Council area will be affected by this welfare reform.

Siobhan Peoples from Fermanagh’s Citizens Advice Bureau has outlined the main changes and what they will mean for claimants. She explains that, up until June 19 (Sunday) anyone who applies for DLA will be sent a DLA claim pack. From Monday June 20 onwards, people making a new claim will be sent a PIP pack. “From December 2016, all remaining DLA claimants, aged 16 to 64 years, will be randomly selected for assessment. The PIP Centre will write to claimants to let them know they are required to make a claim to PIP and provided they do so when requested, they will continue to receive their DLA payments until four weeks after their PIP claim is determined.

“The main differences between DLA and PIP are that DLA is currently available from three months old up to the age of 64. PIP will be available for people of working age i.e. 16-64. Children aged under 16 will receive DLA and adults aged 65 and over will receive Attendance Allowance.”
Like DLA, the PIP will be made up of two components: 
- a Daily Living Component which has two rates: standard rate of £55.10 per week and enhanced rate of £82.30 per week. As with DLA, it is awarded to people who have a disability and is based on a person’s need for active help with activities of daily living; and
- a Mobility Component which has two rates: standard rate of £21.80 per week, and enhanced rate of £57.45 per week. How disability will be assessed is very different.
Ms. Peoples points out that PIPs have done away with the low rate DLA care component of £21.80 per week. “Many of our clients qualified for this. It is £21.80 per week but was not means-tested and helped to alleviate some of the costs of disability. It is proposed that there will be funding available to alleviate this hardship in the Mitigation Fund, but this will be short term only,” she said. Ms. Peoples explains that “Everyone has to attend an assessment carried out by a Government Appointed Health Professional. The only exception for people of working age are those who are terminally ill. The PIP Centre will no longer write to a person’s GP. Instead people who apply will have to attend a medical assessment carried out by an assessor appointed by the PIP Centre.”